		Site Map \| Contact Us \| Search:

JOIN

The Planetary Society Blog

By Emily Lakdawalla

Possibly the best view of the Great Red Spot ever

Sep. 1, 2010 | 16:40 PDT | 23:40 UTC

We need your help.
Please donate to support our blog, website, and podcast.

Weblog Archive

Icelandic amateur image processor Björn Jónsson just posted this to unmannedspaceflight.com and I thought it was so spectacular that I had to post it -- and his explanation -- here directly. It never ceases to amaze me what can be pulled out of this 30-year-old data.

EDIT SEP 28: Welcome to everyone arriving here from Bad Astronomy and GeekDad. If you like what you see below, I suggest searching this site on Bjorn Jonsson's name. If you're hungry for space photos, search on Gordan Ugarkovic and Ted Stryk.

by Björn Jónsson

This is a new, big mosaic of Voyager 1 images, this time showing the Great Red Spot at high resolution. The contrast and sharpness have been greatly exaggerated. [Visit unmannedspaceflight.com for a version without this exaggeration.]

Click to enlarge >

Voyager mosaic of the Great Red Spot of Jupiter
This 12-footprint color mosaic of Jupiter's Great Red Spot was composed of 24 images captured through orange and violet filters by Voyager 1 on March 4, 1979 at a distance of about 1.85 million km. The resolution is roughly 24 km/pixel in the "click to enlarge" version; for a full-resolution version at 18 km/pixel (2.5 MB), click here. Credit: NASA / JPL / color mosaic by Björn Jónsson

This is a 4x3 mosaic of images. The processing is almost identical to the processing described for my previous Jupiter mosaic so I'm not describing it further here. One caveat though: There is probably some slight geometric distortion but it shouldn't be a problem in this case.

The images I used were obtained on March 4, 1979 at a distance of about 1.85 million kilometers. The first image (C1635314.IMQ) was obtained at 07:08:36 and the last one (C1635400.IMQ) at 07:45:24. The resolution is roughly 18 km/pixel.

Mosaics of some of these images have appeared before as 'official' image releases but interestingly, only three-by-two-frame mosaics were used in all cases. The official mosaic can be seen here. There is a false color version (lots of blue color) that is better known.

My new mosaic reveals an enormous amount of details, especially in the sharpened version. Some of these details I didn't know were visible in any images of Jupiter until relatively recently. The sunlight is coming from the east (right) and because the Great Red Spot is in the southern hemisphere it's really coming roughly from the east-northeast over the Great Red Spot and the regions south of it. With this in mind, vertical relief and cloud shadows are -- I think -- visible at many locations around the Red Spot's periphery. I have marked them on the key below.

Voyager mosaic of the Great Red Spot of Jupiter (labeled)
The blue "X"s on this version of Björn Jónsson's Great Red Spot mosaic mark cloud features that might display shadows from vertical relief of the clouds. Credit: NASA / JPL / color mosaic by Björn Jónsson

This is the highest resolution color mosaic completely covering the Great Red Spot that I have ever seen. Galileo didn't obtain Great Red Spot mosaics at this resolution and Cassini passed too far away from Jupiter. This image looks sufficiently different (and better!) from the old, official versions that in a way I feel like I'm processing stuff from a new planetary encounter when I see this. We will probably not be seeing anything comparable to this until EJSM (or some future spacecraft) starts orbiting Jupiter. Hopefully it will be carrying a camera capable of obtaining even higher resolution images than this from the distances it typically images Jupiter at high resolution.

Interestingly, the orange and violet images I used here were followed by a green-filtered Great Red Spot mosaic about 40 minutes later. However, I couldn't use these and was forced to create a synthetic green channel from orange and violet channels because some of the clouds (especially in the northeast periphery) moved so fast that the three color channels couldn't be properly aligned if I used the green images.

Post this page to:

Comments

beautiful!

#1 - Steven - 09/02/2010 - 08:40

By Jove, that hits the Spot! ;-)

Magnificent image - well done, conrats & thanks form me to Björn Jónsson, Emily Lakdawalla - & btw. in cas efolks don't know this is also on the Bad Astronomy blog too from whence I've just come.

#2 - Messier Tidy Upper - 09/27/2010 - 08:58

Magnificent!

Bjorn,

What software did you use for your compositions?

#3 - Mark - 09/28/2010 - 10:40

Pic

This pic is amazing! We need to fund space travel. At the rate we are going mother earth can't support us, we are destroying earth! We get alot of inventions from the space program and it helps create jobs and make America Safe. We need a new mission. Like in the 60's, JFK really made us more of a superpower and helped secure Americas future! Just look at this picture! Why wouldn't we want to explore! It's in our DNA we need to get off this planet before it's to late!

#4 - William - 09/29/2010 - 10:14

Awsome pictures. I agree with William. Let us remember that we are only guests on our planet.

#5 - Margo Verbeet - 09/29/2010 - 11:12

they won't let us

Illuminaty won't let no man go in to space the only way u can is by being rich ....people wake up ur all being toll all da wrong info ..wats they show u in tv isn't real they tell u want u want ...think put tha box be 4 its to late

#6 - rick for compton - 09/29/2010 - 13:45

IDK if we should

Space travel with our technology would be far to dangerous. Even going to the moon is a big risk. Ever seen that Tom Hanks movie??

#7 - Tony - 09/30/2010 - 16:26


Name

E-mail (Will not appear online)

Title

Comment


To prevent automated Bots form spamming, please enter the text you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.

This comment form is powered by GentleSource Comment Script. It can be included in PHP or HTML files and allows visitors to leave comments on the website.

Emily's on Twitter! »